SHIRE OF ROEBOURNE

LOCAL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE INVENTORY Volume 1

September 2013

SHIRE OF ROEBOURNE LOCAL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE INVENTORY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The 2012/2013 Review was coordinated by the Shire of Roebourne and undertaken by Eureka Archaeological Research & Consulting (UWA) in conjunction with the National Trust of Australia (WA).

We would like to thank the following individuals and organisations for their valued assistance with this project:

Murujuga Rangers Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation – Paul Stenson (CEO), Geoff Togo, Pansy Hicks, Jill Churnside, Jeannie Churnside, Kerry Churnside, Andrew Dowding Anna and Rob Vitenbergs Joanne Pritchard Ruth Ellis Audrey Cosmos Susan Cosmos Jack Shaw Warren Richards State Heritage Office State Library of West Australia Owners and managers at Karratha Station, Mardie Station, Pyramid Station, Chiritta Station, Croydon Station, Sherlock Station, and Mallina Station.

SHIRE OF ROEBOURNE LOCAL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE INVENTORY i

Unveiling of the Anzac memorial outside Union Bank, 1925 , (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.2305)

Transporting wool at Cooya Pooya Station, 1940 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.824)

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CONTENTS

VOLUME 1

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... I LIST OF IMAGES ...... IV INTRODUCTION ...... 1 LEVELS OF SIGNIFICANCE AND MANAGEMENT CATEGORIES ...... 2 TOWN PLANNING SCHEME ...... 2 REVIEW LIST & COMMUNITY INPUT ...... 2 THEMATIC FRAMEWORK ...... 5 DIVERSE CULTURAL VALUES...... 8 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SHIRE OF ROEBOURNE ...... 11 PRE-COLONISATION, EARLY CONTACT WITH THE NORTHWEST (PRE 1860S) ...... 11 ENCOUNTERS, FRONTIER CONTACT (1860S-1870) ...... 13 DIVERSE COMMUNITIES (1880S-1920S) ...... 18 SOCIAL HISTORIES, PAST VOICES (1930S-1960) ...... 25 SOCIAL CHANGE, A FUTURE IN RESOURCES (1960S-1980S) ...... 31 CONTESTED LANDSCAPES, A NATIONALLY SIGNIFICANT REGION (1990S-2000S) ...... 36 LOCAL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE INVENTORY 2013 ...... 39 PLACE RECORD LIST ...... 39 REVIEW LIST ...... 42 FOOTNOTES ...... 45

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LIST OF IMAGES

IMAGE 1. VISITING PYRAMID STATION DURING LGHI REVIEW: LOCAL HISTORY OFFICER EILEEN WRIGHT AND GLEN CONNELL, STATION MANAGER, PHOTOGRAPHER: PATERSON, 2012...... 3 IMAGE 2. DEC STAFF INSPECT TRY-WORKS AT MALUS ISLAND WHALING STATION, PATERSON , 2004...... 4 IMAGE 3. STONE YARDS AT INTHANOONA STATION...... 7 IMAGE 4. WOODSIDE OFFSHORE PETROLEUM’S LNG PLANT ON THE BURRUP PENINSULA, ...... 9 IMAGE 5. DETAIL OF GREGORY'S MAP ...... 13 IMAGE 6. F.T. GREGORY. (JOHN OXLEY LIBRARY, STATE LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND.) ...... 14 IMAGE 7. WHIM CREEK COPPER MINE, C1914 ...... 17 IMAGE 8. BALLA BALLA POST OFFICE 1898 ...... 19 IMAGE 9. BALLA BALLA JETTY WITH THE BEAGLE MOORED ...... 19 IMAGE 10. POLICE STATION ROEBOURNE, 1900 ...... 20 IMAGE 11. PRISONERS IN CHAINS RETURNING TO THE GAOL IN ROEBOURNE, 1902 ...... 21 IMAGE 12. POINT SAMSON JETTY WORK TEAM, OUTSIDE THE ROEBOURNE ROAD BOARD OFFICE (OLD UNION

BANK), 1925 ...... 24 IMAGE 13. JUBILEE HOTEL, 1920S ...... 25 IMAGE 14. KARRATHA HOMESTEAD 1931 ...... 26 IMAGE 15. BILL LESLIE WITH MOTHER SARAH LESLIE AT KARRATHA HOMESTEAD, 1933 ...... 26 IMAGE 16. ABORIGINAL HOUSE STAFF, 1931 ...... 26 IMAGE 17. OPERATION HURRICANE, 3 OCTOBER 1952 (WIKIPEDIA) ...... 28

IMAGE 18. KARRATHA STATION WOOL AT MAITLAND RIVER LANDING. L-R GWEN DYER, CLARE SHOLL, WIN MCCAMEY, GLEN COABIN, BILL LESLIE...... 29 IMAGE 19. LAUNCH OF NORTH RANKIN 'A' GAS PLATFORM IN JUNE 1982...... 32 IMAGE 20. FENACL FESTIVAL, DAMPIER, 1972 ...... 35 IMAGE 21. BUS USED BY HAMERSLEY IRON ...... 35 IMAGE 22. ARTIST UNKNOWN, RALLY TO DEFEND BLACK RIGHTS 1984 ...... 37

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Horse-drawn tram on Roebourne-Cossack tramline (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2004.27)

Arrival of Tambourah mail coach at Roebourne Post Office, c1900 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.2165)

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Section 45 of the Heritage of Western Australia Act 1990 requires local governments to maintain an inventory of heritage places in their district which are of cultural heritage significance to the community. This is now called a Local Government Heritage Inventory, or LGHI (previously Municipal Heritage Inventory). The Shire of Roebourne created its first Municipal Heritage Inventory in 1996 1 and undertook a review during 2012 that resulted in this document.

Places on the LGHI are not necessarily buildings, but can be sites of former buildings, activities or events, as well as built structures such as mines, wells or roads. As well as heritage places, heritage areas or “precincts” may be included on the LGHI.

The Shire of Roebourne LGHI focuses on the post-contact history of the area. As such, some of the heritage places and areas included on it have an Aboriginal historical association. Whilst these places are of significance to the Ngarluma/Yindjibarndi community, there are other Aboriginal sites and places of significance in the area that are not included in the LGHI. A number of these other Aboriginal sites are included in the Register of Aboriginal Sites (The Register) maintained by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA). The Register contains information about places that are defined as Aboriginal sites under Section 5 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (AHA), which is the principal Act protecting Aboriginal heritage sites in Western Australia.

Under the AHA it is an offence to conceal, damage, destroy or in any way alter an Aboriginal site without prior permission from the Registrar at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs under Section 16 or the Minister for Indigenous Affairs under Section 18. Aboriginal heritage sites are broadly defined under Section 5 of the Act as any place or object of importance and significance to Aboriginal people. This includes sacred, ritual or ceremonial sites, individual artefacts and places with an Aboriginal historical, anthropological, archaeological or ethnographic association. The AHA also protects Aboriginal sites that are considered to be of importance and cultural significance to the State.

Other Commonwealth and State Acts that may be relevant to Aboriginal heritage management in WA include the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) (NTA), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cwlth) (ATSIHP Act), the Environmental Protection Act 1986 (Part 4) (WA) (EPA), the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986 (Cwlth) (PMCH Act), the Heritage of Western Australia Act 1990 (WA) and the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cwlth) (EPBC Act).

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MANAGEMENT

LEVELS OF SIGNIFICANCE AND MANAGEMENT CATEGORIES

Places or areas included on the LGHI must meet significance criteria based on Aesthetic, Historic, Research or Social significance as outlined in the State Heritage Office’s “Criteria for the assessment of local heritage places and areas”.

There are four levels of significance, and each entry on the LGHI is rated according to rarity, representativeness, condition, integrity and authenticity. The Shire of Roebourne uses a Management Category system related to the level of significance as shown below.

LEVEL OF SIGNIFICANCE DESCRIPTION DESIRED OUTCOME

The place should be retained and conserved. Any alterations Management Category A: Essential to the heritage of the or extensions should reinforce Exceptional significance locality. Rare or outstanding the significance of the place, example. and be in accordance with a Conservation Plan (if one exists for the place).

Conservation of the place is Management Category B: Very important to the heritage highly desirable. Any Considerable significance of the locality. High degree of alterations or extensions integrity/authenticity. should reinforce the significance of the place.

Conservation of the place is Contributes to the heritage of desirable. Any alterations or Management Category C: the locality. Has some altered extensions should reinforce the or modified elements, not Moderate significance significance of the place, and necessarily detracting from the original fabric should be overall significance of the item. retained wherever feasible.

Management Category D: Photographically record prior to Does not fulfill the criteria for major development or Some Significance entry in the local Heritage List. demolition. Recognise and interpret the site if possible.

Town Planning Scheme

The aim of the process is to include places rated as Management Category A or B and ensure that they are placed onto the Shire of Roebourne Heritage List (“the List”) as per clause 6.9.1 of the Shire’s Town Planning Scheme No. 8. This is subject of a separate process and will be considered as part of the scheme review.

Review List & Community Input

The Review List system is a critical part of the process of assessing places for the LGHI. Places to be included on the LGHI can be suggested by community members at any time, to be considered in a later review phase. Several places were suggested to be added to the review list in 2012, but not all were able to be assessed during the review process. Some are included as new additions while others remain

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MANAGEMENT

on an updated Review List. Similarly some earlier suggestions from the 1996 Review List were added to the 2013 LGHI, some were deemed inappropriate and some remain on the Review List.

The Legislative requirement is that an LGHI Review take place every four years, however an annual process of reviewing new recommendations is seen as more practical, in particular as it allows input from Indigenous organisations to be assessed and incorporated and will allow the Shire to work through the Review List gradually. This process would be a collaborative effort between the Planning Department, the Local History Office and the Regional Heritage Advisor from the Heritage Council of Western Australia.

Input from Indigenous organisations is considered essential in order to have a well-rounded document that reflects the cultural significance of places from all community perspectives. Due to the timeframe of the 2012 review process and commitments of Indigenous organisations this was not possible to the desired extent. However, Indigenous organisations are invited to forward input and recommendations for inclusion in this document and these will be assessed in an ongoing manner.

Image 1. Visiting Pyramid Station during LGHI Review: Local History Officer Eileen Wright and Glen Connell, Station Manager, Photographer: Paterson, 2012.

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MANAGEMENT

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Image 2. DEC staff inspect try-works at Malus Island whaling station, Paterson , 2004.

THEMATIC FRAMWORK

THEMATIC FRAMEWORK

The purpose of this thematic history is to aid understanding of the history of the Shire of Roebourne and its cultural heritage. The Heritage Council sets out a methodological framework for constructing thematic histories for Local Government Heritage Inventories, which means that comparative studies can be more readily undertaken across the State according to shared and divergent themes.

The Heritage Council recommends that Local Government Heritage Inventories present a chronological history of the area, which can be structured under thematic headings. This method is sometimes referred to as ‘themes in time’. It is a chronological narrative that uses themes to characterise specific periods.

The authors have reviewed the 1996 Local Government Heritage Inventory ‘themes in time’ and developed new themes that reflect current research and approaches to history. These themes provide a context for understanding the cultural heritage of the region and can be used to inform interpretive work in the region, including heritage trails.

1. Pre-colonisation, early contact with the Northwest (pre 1860s) Maritime exploration; global trade networks; whaling; perspectives on Aboriginal life. 2. Encounters, frontier contact (1860s-1870s) Colonisation; frontier violence; early pastoralism; pearling; early migration; unfree labour.

3. Diverse communities (1880s-1920s) Cultural influences and exchange; communication and transport networks; two Laws and Aboriginal resistance; resource exploitation (mining, pastoralism); growing settlements; environmental degradation; environmental adaptation and innovation.

4. Social histories, past voices (1930s-1960) Economic decline; 1946 Pilbara Strike; exile from traditional lands; impact of World Wars; British nuclear testing; social histories revealed through oral histories.

5. Social change, a future in resources (1960s-1980s) Shift from pastoralism to industrialisation; Karratha Station to Karratha town; iron ore, salt, oil and gas exploration; influx of workers; new towns; impact on Roebourne; death of John Pat and Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

6. Contested landscapes, tensions in a nationally significant region (1990s- 2000s) Impact of native title; heritage frameworks; contested resources in a globalised world; fly-in-fly-out workforce; environmental impacts; diverse values; international networks; Australia’s economic powerhouse.

In addition to the chronological history this Local Government Heritage Inventory provides a review of the thematic framework.2 This type of thematic framework is sometimes referred to as ‘themes through time’, as they are broad themes that can be applied to the past across a range of periods.

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THEMATIC FRAMWORK

The authors have applied the Heritage Council’s Themes at the broad level in the following thematic history.

1. Demographic settlement and mobility Why people settled, moved, and how they adapted to the environment.

2. Transport and communication How people, goods and information moved throughout the region.

3. Occupations The occupations and activities of people, paid and unpaid labour.

4. Social and civic activities What people did together as a community.

5. Outside influences Events, decisions or changes that affected communities.

6. People Diverse women and men who shaped the history of, or contributed to, the community.

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THEMATIC FRAMWORK

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Image 3. Stone yards at Inthanoona Station. Warren Richards

THEMATIC FRAMWORK

Diverse Cultural Values

This Local Government Heritage Inventory seeks to recognise differing perceptions of cultural value around heritage. Heritage sites may embody intersecting histories and have multiple values that reflect the cultural diversity of communities. The authors have followed the Code on the Ethics of Co-existence in Conserving Significant Places (Adopted by ICOMOS Australia in 1998) in reviewing the Shire of Roebourne’s Local Government Heritage Inventory. 3 This Code guides best practice towards management of heritage sites and recognises that ‘in a pluralist society, value differences exist and contain the potential for conflict; and ethical practice is necessary for the just and effective management of places of diverse cultural significance.’4 The authors have attempted throughout to highlight where diverse cultural values are associated with sites listed in the Shire’s Local Government Heritage Inventory. This is especially relevant for the Shire of Roebourne, where heritage is under increasing pressure from development with expanding mining and oil and gas operations, and the potential for conflict around heritage is high.

Conflict arising from diverse cultural values is perhaps best illustrated in the history of industrial activity on the Dampier Archipelago (including the Burrup Peninsula), the only site on the National Heritage List in the Shire of Roebourne, indeed the Pilbara, recognised for its prolific and ancient collections of rock art.

Despite long being recognised as an important rock art site, evidence of the longest continuous culture in the world, the Dampier Archipelago was earmarked for the potential location of a deepwater port to accommodate the growing iron ore industry from the mid-1960s. Earlier the Government had considered Depuch Island for the deepwater port, also within the Shire of Roebourne. In 1961 surveys were undertaken on Depuch Island by the Western Australian Museum to ascertain its suitability. Depuch Island also contains rock art of extraordinary diversity and is connected to important ceremonial dreaming tracks. The Museum’s archaeological investigations at Depuch Island recommended that it would be unacceptable to use the island as a port because of its exceptional Aboriginal heritage. Attention then turned to the Burrup as the potential site of a port, despite knowledge of this area’s heritage, which is of equal or greater significance to Depuch Island. 5

From 1964, development proceeded on the Burrup, causing the destruction of petroglyphs and impacting on the heritage values of the area. This was prior to the Department of Aboriginal Sites being established in 1970 under the Western Australia Museum and the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act being passed in 1972. Further research was undertaken into the rock art on the Burrup from this time by both the Department of Aboriginal Sites and industry, which soon operated on the Burrup. Hamersley Iron’s major iron ore port was constructed in 1972, Dampier Salt also operated in the area and further development pressures mounted with the discovery of the gas province of the North West Shelf in 1971.

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THEMATIC FRAMWORK

Image 4. Woodside Offshore Petroleum’s LNG plant on the Burrup Peninsula, SLWA BA1622/21, 2001.

Despite the widespread presence of Aboriginal heritage sites across the Dampier Archipelago - one of the world’s largest concentrations of ancient rock art - the Aboriginal heritage values of the area were largely dismissed by Government in its encouragement of an industrial future for the region. Patricia Vinnicombe reveals that no consultation took place with traditional owners of the region in the planning for the location of Woodside’s gas treatment plant in 1978, or in any previous development on the Burrup. Vinnicombe draws attention to the conflict of values between industrial needs and conservation requirements. Despite efforts by the Department of Aboriginal Sites attempting to fulfil its responsibilities under the Aboriginal Heritage Act, and repeated recommendations to Government for research and protection of sites in the Archipelago, it wasn’t until 1984 that selected areas were declared Protected Areas under the Act and listed on the Register of the National Estate.

Since this time efforts have been made towards greater recognition of the Burrup’s heritage including management planning for its conservation and drafting of the boundaries for a potential conservation area. In 2003, the Burrup and Maitland Industrial Estates Agreement (BMIEA) was signed, establishing an Approved Body Corporate (ABC) by the name of Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation with representation from the Traditional Custodians and providing native title settlement (including granting of title to Murujuga for non-industrial lands in the Archipelago), prior to native title being established in the region.6 Following this, a proposed draft Management Plan 2006-2016 for a conservation area on the Burrup was prepared. Approval of the Management Plan under the BMIEA for Murujuga stalled, and granting of settlement obligations promised met with obstacles. In 2005 the Ngarluma/Yindjibarndi Native Title claim was granted, the first native title determination in the Pilbara region. In this finding, native title was found to be extinguished on the Burrup.

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THEMATIC FRAMWORK

Alongside this, the wider community began to agitate for the protection of the Burrup as awareness of the world significance of the rock art grew. In 2002 the National Trust of Australia (WA) nominated the Burrup Peninsula to the 100 Most Endangered World Monuments List, the only Australian site to ever be identified. This was granted in 2003. In 2004, the National Trust, the Native Title Claimants, the Greens Party and others, nominated the Dampier Archipelago, which includes Murujuga (the Burrup Peninsula) to the National Heritage List. Murujuga was finally listed on the National Heritage List in 2007.7 Following this, Woodside entered into a Conservation Agreement with the Federal Government committing up to $34million towards the recognition, protection and conservation of the National Heritage values of the Dampier Archipelago and establishing the Woodside Rock Art Foundation. In October 2012, it was announced that the Murujuga National Park would finally be declared in 2013, under the joint management of Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation and the Department of Environment and Conservation. This will be the only national park in the Shire of Roebourne.

This long contested site continues to support the expansion of major industrial activity, despite being on the National Heritage List and recognised as one of the world’s most important rock art sites. Conservation of the area by Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation and the Government, as well as wider community stakeholders, is of vital importance, now more than ever. Understanding the heritage values of the area is crucial for the whole community, who has a shared responsibility for the care of this place of world heritage significance. The Archipelago’s historic significance as the location of early European contact, and subsequent colonial violence as the site of Flying Foam Massacre needs also to be understood. This is a multi-layered site, with diverse values, across spiritual, historic, scientific, economic as well as political significance.

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF SHIRE OF ROEBOURNE

Pre-colonisation, early contact with the Northwest (pre 1860s)

It is fitting that this history begins by exploring early European contact with the Northwest, through the area around the Dampier Archipelago. A vessel from the English East India Company, the Trial, was wrecked off the Northwest coast in 1622, at the reef now known as Tryal Rocks near the Montebello Islands. The captain of the ship, John Brooke was instructed to sail a new and faster route to Batavia. The route involved sailing east in the Roaring Forties to turn north several hundred nautical miles before the Great South Land. Brooke’s navigation brought the vessel close to the Northwest coast. The Trial is Australia’s oldest known shipwreck. Brooke survived with a group of 45 people, sailing to Batavia, however 93 others perished.8 Dutch vessels, associated with the Dutch East India Company’s spice trade, had navigated the Northwest coast in the early to mid 1600s. As early as 1628, DeWitt noted land around the present site of Roebourne and sailed along the coast in the Vianen, from about Onslow to Cossack, naming the land on Dutch maps as ‘De Witt’s land.’9 De Witt described, ‘barren and dangerous coasts, green fertile fields and exceedingly savage, black, barbarian inhabitants.’ 10 In 1644, Abel Janssen Tasman charted the Northwest coast to the Cape York Peninsula with the Limmen, the Zeemeeuw and the Bracq.11 Although charts of the journey survive, details are not known, as Tasman’s journal has not been found. Dutch explorers noted nothing of value in the region, and were unimpressed with what seemed to their eyes an inhospitable landscape, devoid of economic potential.

English navigator William Dampier on the Roebuck recorded land along the Northwest coast, and specifically the Archipelago, including the Burrup, in 1699. Dampier anchored off what he named Rosemary Island, and observed smoke in the distance coming from another island, suggesting the presence of Aboriginal people. Dampier’s records provide a rich account of the flora and fauna he observed in ‘New Holland’, stimulating interest in the great south land.12

Nicholas Baudin, with his French vessel, the Geographe, and his second in command Jacques Felix Emmanuel Hamelin with the Naturaliste, visited the Northwest in 1801, charting the islands of the Archipelago, and naming Legendre and Delambre Islands. Baudin sent a landing party to Depuch Island on 28 June, noting evidence of recent fires and chipped stones.13 French interest in the west of Australia at this time was part of their wider expansion into the Indian Ocean. After the loss of Canada in 1763, France was attempting to rebuild her empire. Western Australia seemed an ideal location for a base for France’s expansion into Asia, and as a ‘half way house to India’ associated with the French East India Company. More than this, France required knowledge of the waters of Western Australia for strategic and commercial reasons; essential to their successful passage through the Indian Ocean. 14 Baudin’s expedition was tasked with mapping the coast, looking for harbours, journeying up rivers and was scientific in focus, collecting specimens and making observations of the land and people. Baudin named the Dampier Archipelago after William Dampier, a much-admired navigator.

The English explorer Phillip Parker King surveyed the Northwest coast on the Mermaid in 1818 (with John Septimus Roe on board, the young surveyor, later Western Australia’s first Surveyor General, and after whom the town of Roebourne would later be named).15 He anchored off Enderby Island, so named by King, on 24 February. King and Roe went ashore to look for fresh water, observing ‘The tracks of natives and their fire-places were everywhere visible, and around the latter the bones of kangaroos and fishes were strewed.’16

King and Roe encountered three Aborigines paddling on logs, captured one and took him on board for half an hour in which, Tom Gara describes, he was ‘ornamented with beads and a red cap and given some biscuit – which he spat out – and some sugared water which he drank.’ This seems to have been an attempt by King’s party to bestow ‘gifts’ on the Aborigines, presumably in the hope for exchange of information. Further attempts were made to communicate with the group of Aborigines on the

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

neighbouring island, gifts distributed, though later found abandoned on the shore. Several attempts at engagement eventually resulted in King and a crew being invited ashore by a group of Aborigines, ‘we were soon gabbling each in our own language, and therefore mutually unintelligible.’17 Attempting to land at another island, King and his crew were warded off by a group of Aborigines, threatening them with spears. King named the island group Intercourse Islands, after the encounter with the Aborigines. He also named Nichol Bay, Enderby Island and Lewis Island.

In 1840 the British ship the H.M.S. Beagle, captained by Stokes and Wickham, on her third voyage, anchored off Depuch Island and obtained water from the island. Numerous engravings were noted, but the island seemed uninhabited although they observed the Aborigines wading across at low tide but ‘they would not allow us to communicate.’18

As early as 1800, American whaling and sealing ships visited the Dampier Archipelago in search of humpback whales during July and September. By the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s whaling ships frequented the area. It is thought that there are three graves of American whalers on Enderby Island. 19 Alistair Paterson observes the difficulty in determining whether their activities were shore based or conducted from ship. On Malus Island, there is evidence of one whaling station on shore. The Mercator from New Bedford, captained by Obed Delano, spent three months in the Dampier Archipelago from July 1842, hunting whale and catching turtle and observed ‘natives’ fires on the land.’20 Many other whaling vessels visited the Archipelago over several decades.

Despite this maritime activity in the Northwest over several centuries, scant information was known about the area inland from the coast, and much speculation was made about its potential for settlement and suitability for commercial prospects.

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Encounters, frontier contact (1860s-1870)

Colonial settlement of the Northwest of Western Australia was triggered as a result of Francis Thomas Gregory’s exploration of the area in 1861 on the Dolphin, some thirty years after the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829. 21 Gregory and his party were financed in part by the British Government, keen to find new regions in which to grow cotton, then in short supply because of the American Civil War. Gregory was a surveyor with the Western Australian survey department, and his expedition to the Northwest became a joint venture between the Colonial Government of Western Australia and the British Government. Private investors including Walter Padbury, a West Australian grazier looking for land for wool production, also backed Gregory.22 Gregory was the first colonist to travel to the Northwest, and had already surveyed the region of the Murchison and Gascoyne Rivers in 1857 and 1858.23

In May 1861 Gregory’s party, which included the budding pastoralists WS Hall and E Brockman, landed at Nickol Bay on the Dolphin, naming it Hearson’s Cove, from where they commenced land exploration. Mr Hearson was second mate on the expedition and was injured in a shooting accident while unloading, which Gregory commemorated through the naming of Hearson’s Cove.24 While ashore seeking water, Gregory discovered that two Aborigines had paddled out on logs to the Dolphin. It appeared to Gregory that the men were familiar with biscuits and tobacco, later writing, ‘Their fearlessness and confidence in the good faith of Europeans would lead to the impression that this was not their first acquaintance with vessels on the coast.’25 Later, an altercation occurred between Gregory’s party and a group of Aborigines, Gregory writing,

‘tried at first to make them understand that we had taken possession for the present, and did not want their company; they were however, very indignant at our endeavours to drive them away, and very plainly ordered us off to the ship...I accordingly took hold of one of the most refractory, and compelled him to march off at double quick time.’

Image 5. Detail of Gregory's map

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

The group retreated to the hills, and Gregory’s party fired gunshots over their heads. 26 Once a base was established, Gregory’s party set off, first travelling to the Fortescue River, south to the Lyons River, along the Ashburton River, through the Hamersley Ranges and along the Sherlock River.

Gregory reported that the country was ‘suitable for agricultural purposes’ and in particular recommended the area for cotton growing.27 Gregory also recognised the commercial potential of pearl shell.28 His exploration of the Hamersley Ranges noted iron ore. With these positive reports, a flurry of excitement about the opportunities in the Northwest was felt in the Swan River Colony and as far afield as South Australia and Victoria. Walter Padbury, pastoralist, merchant and later a philanthropist lobbied Governor Hampton, for incentives to encourage squatters to take up land in the Northwest. 29 This resulted in land regulations being introduced from 1862, which made generous provisions designed to lure squatters to the Northwest and effectively extend the reach Image 6. F.T. Gregory. (John Oxley of colonisation.30 Library, State Library of Queensland.) Walter Padbury soon took advantage of these incentives and sailed north in 1863 on the Tien Tsin under the command of Captain Jarman, becoming the first to settle in the area. His scouting party included Charles Nairn, Michael Samson, Ridley McCourt, D. Brown and W. Jones, and he was also accompanied by a Government surveyor S. Ridley, a cook G. Sivert, five Aborigines, four of whom were prisoners from Rottnest Island, as well as stock and stores.31 Landing at what he named Tien Tsin Harbour (later Cossack), Padbury then travelled overland to claim an area of land along the DeGrey River.32 According to J.S. Battye. ‘Mr Padbury went down the Harding River, and returned to Fremantle without choosing a permanent camp for the stock, which he left in charge of members of the party.’33

It is possible that Padbury’s party, not long after landing, and needing to rest their stock and survey their situation, stopped atop the hills above the Cossack Upper Landing site, building stone yards to contain and protect their stock and stone shelters which also appear to have functioned as barricades. Given Gregory’s earlier altercation with Aborigines at Hearson’s Cove there may have been some expectation of aggressive contact. There is evidence of stone yards above the Cossack Upper Landing site now on the Review List of the Local Government Heritage Inventory.

After Padbury’s passage to settle the Northwest, with members of his party returning to the Swan River Colony (Michael Samson, after whom Point Samson is named, soon returned to Fremantle, before venturing to China to establish trade in sandlewood, and later becoming Mayor of Fremantle), a group of settlers with John Wellard soon followed.

Wellard’s 1863 party included William Shakespeare Hall, who had earlier accompanied Gregory’s expedition on the Dolphin. Hall managed Andover Station for Wellard, the first station in what was to become the Roebourne district.34 Communications with the Swan River Colony were minimal, and reliant on ships. Their isolation from European settlement would have been palpable, especially as early encounters with Aborigines involved some level of tension and perhaps conflict. De la Rue writes that the station hand Ted Lewington was attacked in February 1864, but escaped. Nonetheless the settlers were followed closely by a group of Aborigines for some time.35

In April 1864, John Withnell’s party including his wife Emma and children, rested at what they named Mt Welcome. Withnell soon chose land on the Sherlock River, establishing Old Sherlock Station. Paterson writes that these early stations ‘formed nodes in the colonial frontier’ where cultural contact, sometimes conflict, occurred between the early pastoralists and Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people.36

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Gregory had noted that he believed, if treated well, the ‘natives’ would not hinder settlement.37 Colonial expansion into the Northwest discounted the population of Aboriginal people and their ownership of and responsibility for territories of land.

Interest in the Northwest was stimulated by the publication of land regulations and optimistic accounts of the regions of Camden Harbour, Denison Plains and Nichol Bay, especially from Victorians. Two settler groups from Melbourne and one from Portland formed to take advantage of the apparent opportunity. From Perth, the Roebuck Bay Pastoral and Agricultural Association was formed. However, three settlers with the Association were killed by Aborigines while exploring the area south of Roebuck Bay in 1864.38 This wasn’t widely reported, but Governor Hampton took note, deciding to establish a magistrate presence in the Northwest, with the dual purpose of ‘prevent[ing] by every possible means of collision with the natives’ and establishing regulatory control for the growing squatting community.39

Robert J Sholl was appointed Magistrate for the Northwest, and sent with a party of 46 (half of whom were enrolled pensioner guards and their families) to establish a colonial post, eventually at Roebourne, at the foot of Mt Welcome on the Harding River, declaring Roebourne a town site in 1866, named after John Septimus Roe.40 In the same year, the name Tien Tsin was changed to Port Walcott, though in 1871 the name changed again to Cossack, after HMS Cossack, to commemorate the visit of Governor Weld.41

Roebourne was the first town to be established in the Northwest.42 One of the first land assignments in Roebourne was Suburban Lot 1, which was granted to John Withnell on 11 December 1866.43

At the time of settlement, it soon became clear that the land around Roebourne was perhaps not as suited to agriculture as first reported.44 Indeed, between 1864 and 1866 there was a severe drought in the region. Squatter AR Richardson recorded in his diary on 21 April 1865 that the Aborigines could not remember such a bad drought before.45 He also noted that ‘There has been a good deal reported about this country that is not true. The climate is a good deal hotter than was represented.’46

Pearling was taken up by pastoralists to supplement their income from this time.47 Pearlers used Malay and Japanese pearl divers, and forced Aboriginal labour from the earliest period. 48 Paterson has recorded evidence of early pearling at sites at Black Hawk Bay, Gidley Island, overlooking the Flying Foam Passage and Bandicoot Bay, Barrow Island. Pearling sites have also been noted on Dolphin Island and Dixon Island. Cossack was used as a base port for the pearling fleet.

Historian Tom Gara writes that an epidemic of smallpox broke out in 1866, with devastating consequences for local Aboriginal people. 49 Gara argues that ‘despite drought, disease and the increasing alienation of their traditional lands, the Aborigines seem to have maintained peaceable relations with the settlers.’50 Kay Forrest argues that the relationship between Aborigines and squatters in the early years was friendly, with Aborigines being hospitable, based on ‘reciprocal respect and understanding’. Forrest writes, ‘Before Sholl’s arrival a sense of amity prevailed in the settlement, the Aboriginals being ‘the hosts.’’51

Indeed Sholl reported in February 1866, ‘The result of my observation in the colony is that the fears of the whites are more the cause of disorder than the aggression of blacks... Not a horse, not a head of cattle, not a sheep has been touched. The shepherds, miles from assistance, sleep in the midst of their flocks in safety and confidence.’52

This was soon to end. With Aboriginal sacred sites being desecrated, settlers taking control of water resources, depletion of hunting grounds, and the use of unfree labour in pearling and early pastoralism, tensions between Aboriginal people and squatters grew.53 Aboriginal people began raiding squatter’s supplies and stocks. Conflict soon escalated to violence with the Flying Foam Massacre of 1868 at the Flying Foam Passage.

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Sholl sent a police constable and his assistant to arrest an Aborigine accused of stealing flour from a pearling vessel in February 1868. Overnight, other Aborigines released the captive who was chained by his neck to a tree, and speared to death the constable, his assistant and a pearler who happened to be nearby. Another pearler may also have been killed, but his body was never found. The Government Resident visited the site of the killings, and found the footprints of some 100 people. An Aboriginal man allegedly told Sholl the names of the murderers and that they had fled to the area of the Flying Foam Passage. Sholl then tasked two groups of men, swearing in special constables to the role, to apprehend the alleged murderers. One group, led by J. Withnell went by sea, and the other led by A. McRae, on horseback. Altercations over several days were recorded by official reports in the area of King Bay in the Flying Foam Passage. The deaths of five to ten Aboriginal men, were officially recorded, with no prisoners taken. It is believed however that this retribution party massacred up to 60 Yaburara people including women and children, with devastating consequences for Yaburara people.54 It later came to light that the police constable was seen, ‘carrying off of 2 women to Roebourne’55 This may suggest that the capturing and raping of two women was the reason for the reprisal killings, with the police constable’s murder being seen as retribution by the Aborigines.56 Survivors of the massacre may have fled to the area of Mardie Station, Balmoral Station and Karratha Station.57

Pearling continued to be an important source of income for settlers of the region; indeed, by 1872 Governor Weld noted that ‘The chief reliance of the North-West Settlement is on its pearl shell and pearl fisheries’58 — so much so that by 1871, the first of the Pearling Acts were introduced to control the growing industry, and especially to regulate employment. Legislation was unenforced for many years, however, and unfree labour, the practice of so-called ‘blackbirding’ (slave trading) and exploitation of Aboriginal and Asian labour continued into the 1890s even though it was illegal.59 It is indicative that the recorded population of Roebourne in 1877 was ‘428 whites, 78 women, over 600 aboriginal workers including station hands, almost 1000 Asians.’60 Although the records don’t specify the Asian population, there is evidence of Japanese, Chinese and Malay (Indonesian) people living in the region at that time.

While much of the history of pearling is not reported, John Slade Durlacher who arrived in the Pilbara in 1876 captures the industry as it was and its relationship to sheep pastoralism:

‘During my first visit to the North-West coast in 1876, and for some years before and after, it may be safely stated that the pearling industry was going through its most successful stages, no diving dresses having come into use, and either Malays or natives were used as divers, the only question being which race represented the cheapest labour.’61

In September 1874, in what appears to be the earliest known account by a woman in the Northwest, Ellen Richardson, writing from her home at Pyramid Station, described:

‘Our gentlemen have been running about, first to the De Grey, then to the Maitland, now at this time Elliot and Mr Edgar are away after their pearling natives.’62

The Roebourne community started to grow, with a formal school being established in 1874 operating out of the Courthouse, and social and sporting gatherings such as the Roebourne races (which started as early as 1866), an annual boat regatta and sports day held at Cossack (held for the first time in June 1875).63 These social events are rarely recorded in accounts by the men of Roebourne, but Ellen Richardson in 1874 described ‘We have spent a nice winter with a few unpleasantnesses, but we have had races and a ball and a party at Mrs Venn’s.’64

While the pastoral industry suffered numerous setbacks, such as harsh environmental conditions including cyclones (the 1872 cyclone caused massive damage and loss of stock) after 1877 the squatters began to ship the wool clip direct to London from Cossack, which helped to ease financial pressure.65 Wool continued to be the main source of income for pastoralists. Diversification into cattle

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and horse breeding was also important for many, with accounts of horses being bred for the Indian Army in 1872 and attempts to export good quality horses to Batavia, Singapore and India. 66 The discovery of copper at Whim Creek in 1872, which was mined and shipped to England, provided a new source of revenue and attracted new workers to the area.67

Image 7. Whim Creek copper mine, c1914 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.1664)

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Diverse communities (1880s-1920s)

The first manager for the Union Bank in Roebourne, Thomas Anketell, wrote a report on Roebourne in 1882 which describes the burgeoning pearling and pastoral industries, the prospect of rich mineral resources in the region as well as every aspect of the environment and climate including the ‘Willy Willy.’ Anketell’s report also outlined the sources of business and possible competition for the Union Bank. He calculated the value of exports from the Northwest in 1881 as part of his assessment of the suitability of the district for the Union Bank’s business. He found that in 1881, 3000 bales of wool to the value of £60,000 was exported, with £12,000 of pearls and £34,912 pearl shells, £280 worth of cattle, £3,600 worth of horses and a further £5,000 of miscellaneous exports.

Any successes of these industries were due to the exploitation of unfree Aboriginal labour used at will with payment only in the form of rations and clothing.68 Anketell’s report provides clear evidence of unfree Aboriginal labour in pearling and pastoralism. He describes ‘The principal labour used in pastoral and almost every pursuit, consists of Chinese and Aboriginals, as being cheaper than European labour.’ The Chinese worked as cooks, where Aborigines ‘do good service as shepherds and boundary riders.’ He discusses ‘objectionable’ practices to secure Aboriginal labour in the early years of pearling, ‘to retain their services against their will’, outlining practices amounting to slavery, whereby ‘As the owner is only called upon to supply food and clothing upon a fixed scale to each native by way of wage, it is found to prove much cheaper.’ Anketell calculated that the pearling industry in 1882 employed ‘22 Cutters of light tonnage, 50 small boats, 50 Europeans and 500 Aboriginals.’ According to Anketell, Malay (Indonesian) people were earlier used for pearling ‘at a small monthly wage, but the Dutch having imposed such restrictions against their employment as to tender their use less profitable, the present system of using Aboriginals was resorted to and found to work admirably.’

By 1882, Anketell reported,

‘natives are of infinite use to pearlers in recovering shells, as they can dive to a depth of 60 feet (the depth 42 feet allowed by law comes quite easy to them) and keen and apt at finding the shells... The natives for this work are now obtained without difficulty as they are beginning to realise that they are better clothed and more regularly fed than is the case with them in their natural and nomadic state.’69 Archaeological evidence of Aboriginal camps have been recorded at the fringe of Cossack, revealing that Aboriginal people were closely involved with the activities of Cossack, especially pearling and perhaps also as domestic workers’.70

In 1885, the long-awaited telegraph line linking Roebourne to Geraldton and on to Perth was completed making communication far quicker and enabling Roebourne to be more connected to the centres of Geraldton and Perth, effectively making business much easier to conduct from Roebourne.71 In 1887 there were forty-four stations within 225 miles of Roebourne.72 A maritime network of ports and landings existed along the coast, to allow transfer of stock to market. Balla Balla Landing served for stock as well as to export copper from Whim Creek. A small settlement once populated Balla Balla, including a post office and several hotels. There were similar landings, though not as populated, at the mouth of the Sherlock River, Maitland River, Fortescue River and evidence of sheep yards and station infrastructure on West Lewis Island, possibly for transport of stock.73

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Image 8. Balla Balla Post Office 1898, note the steel cyclone tie-downs (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Collection, 2005.120)

Image 9. Balla Balla jetty with the Beagle moored (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.125)

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Cossack was the principal port. The stock route linked pastoral stations to landings and on to national and international trade networks. In Roebourne, a horse drawn tramway was completed in 1887 to Cossack, covering a distance of 14.2 km, making it easier to transport goods from the port to town.

Cossack was a thriving multicultural port town, much influenced by a strong Asian population. In 1884 the Imported Labour Registry Act allowed the mass introduction of Asian labour to the area. The population increased with new migrants, Chinese people working as cooks, servants and gardeners, and Japanese men working in pearling. Market garden sites have been recorded at Cossack, as well as Asian workers’ camps also on the fringe of the town in dunes. A vibrant Chinatown existed at Cossack, the first in the Northwest, with two Chinese stores, a Chinese bakery, one Japanese store and a Turkish bath, as well as many residences.74 Anketell’s 1882 report refers to market gardens in discussion of the ill suitability of the land for agriculture, writing, ‘There are now only six acres of land under cultivation in the district applied to the growth of vegetables, principally melons, tomatoes, cabbages and beetroot; all of which thrive exceptionally well, being subjected to a process of systematic irrigation.’75

In 1887, the Roebourne Road Board was declared and the region no longer came under the district of Nichol Bay. A number of civic buildings were completed in the town reflecting the needs of the growing community; for example the Roebourne Hospital in 1886, Roebourne Post Office in 1887, Roebourne Police Station, Gaol and Court House Precinct 1886-87. The Cossack Police Quarters, Lockup & Service Buildings date from 1890.

Image 10. Police Station Roebourne, 1900 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.808)

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Image 11. Prisoners in chains returning to the Gaol in Roebourne, 1902 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.323).

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Alongside this development of colonial civic infrastructure came a system of law that severely impacted on the lives of Aboriginal people living in the Northwest. Brutal methods of incarceration were adopted at both Roebourne and Cossack, and evidence for this remains at both the Cossack and Roebourne Gaols. Historian Fiona Skyring describes encountering evidence of the ‘chain-gang technique’ at these sites;

‘There are a few rusty old manacles lying around, and from there you can see how Aboriginal prisoners were chained. The larger manacle went around the prisoner’s neck, and this was connected by heavy chains to handcuffs that went around their wrists, and again connected by chain to iron cuffs that fitted around the prisoner’s ankles. These cuffs and manacles were locked onto the prisoner’s body, the whole apparatus with the trapped prisoner was then chained through the ring in the wall.’76

Prisoners from the whole of the Northwest were incarcerated in Roebourne, often on the way to imprisonment at Rottnest Island.77

The net of colonial law enmeshed hundreds of Aboriginal people caught ‘stealing’ rations and sheep. This was a consequence of the land around Roebourne becoming degraded and depleted of natural food stocks. It also reflects a different cultural perception of ownership of stock, especially when the stock is on traditional lands. As a result Aboriginal people became reliant on stock for food and increasingly dependent on pastoral stations for rations in return for labour. Incidences of stock being killed by Aboriginal people were increasingly reported. By 1891, the Nor West Times reported ‘Sheep and cattle stealing has enormously increased, and there are now nearly 50 prisoners … about 80 percent of whom are undergoing sentences for this class of crime.’78 The Northern Advocate reported ‘The natives’ natural food is becoming scarce, but that is no reason why the settler should suffer from the depredations of the blacks in addition to his heavy losses on this account.’79 In 1898, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, Henry Charles Princep, halved the ration scale for people under the control of the Aborigines Protection Board, significantly impacting the health and nutrition of Aboriginal people until the 1920s when this policy was eventually altered.80 In the 1890s, the colonial government enacted severe restrictions for Aboriginal employment on pastoral stations, further entrenching the system of unfree labour by Aboriginal people working on pastoral stations.

Pastoralists at this time faced a number of problems including falling prices of wool that forced many to turn to the banks and finance companies, such as the Union Bank and the North West Mercantile Company.81 Special concessions were granted to pastoralists in 1887, when their leases were extended to 21 years, which FK Crowley writes enabled them to ‘offer better security to the banks and stock firms on their loans’, which he notes, ‘was readily taken advantage of, and many stations become heavily mortgaged to the trading banks and to such station agencies as Dalgety & Co.’82 In 1887, Dalgety & Co was not yet operating in Roebourne (it opened in 1900), so it is likely that the Union Bank and North West Mercantile Company (consisting of the partnership between WD Moore, JH Monger and McRae & Co) would have monopolized most station financing in the late 1890s.83

The Pilbara goldfield was proclaimed in 188884 and proved to be one of the richest alluvial fields in the State, with ‘more nuggets of over 50 ounces being found on the Pilbara than on any other diggings in Western Australia.’85 Crowley claimed that by 1890 the Western Australian colony had produced 20,000 fine ounces of gold most of which came from the Pilbara.86 Roebourne underwent a period of rapid growth as a consequence of gold fields in the Pilbara. A government geologist, H.P. Woodward, was prescient in reporting vast deposits of iron ore in 1889, ‘enough to supply the whole world.’87

Dalgety & Co, a company operating throughout Australia and New Zealand providing wool brokerage as well as being stock, station and shippings agents, commenced business in Roebourne in September 1900. Their business in the Roebourne area became viable when a Singapore shipping agency operating from Cossack started direct shipments to Singapore and with the new port opening at Point

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Samson, where there was no need for lighterage to get cargo onto ships as was the case at Cossack.88 In 1896, Residents of Roebourne and Districts voted to request the Forrest Government to identify a suitable site at Point Samson for a wharf suitable for delivery of passengers and cargo and in 1900, Point Samson townsite was declared.

By 1927-28, with an extensive list of pastoral stations as clients, Dalgety’s claimed Western Australia had produced a record clip of 176,000 bales.89 ‘The increase can be said to come chiefly from the agricultural districts, Murchison, Gascoyne, Roebourne and Port Hedland districts.’ Not only this but,

‘The wool generally showed improvement in quality and style … Merinos embraced 98 percent of the total clip …Roebourne wools from the lower country were sound and well- grown, with an excellent handle, but carried a fair amount of red dust, with a resultant large proportion of broken and backs. From the tablelands the wools were in beautiful condition, free, fine quality, with very little grease, and made a very attractive display.’90

Despite the record wool clip of 1927-28, by the 1920s Roebourne was undergoing an economic downturn. Pearling was no longer undertaken at Cossack, which had gone into decline by the 1920s, and the Broome pearling industry was growing. Port Hedland was the major town of the Pilbara, largely because of the railway from Marble Bar to Port Hedland opening in 1911. The Union Bank operated in Roebourne until 28 February 1929.91 Accounts were then transferred to the Port Hedland branch, leaving Roebourne without a bank.

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Image 12. Point Samson jetty work team, outside the Roebourne Road Board office (Old Union Bank), 1925 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.2199).

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Social histories, past voices (1930s-1960)

The depression was followed by drought and by the outbreak of World War Two. At this time ‘banks and stock firms put heavy pressure on the struggling pastoralists, many of whom, because of poor pastures and low lambings, were facing bankruptcy.’92

Point Samson began to develop at this time as the port of region, with the construction of a new jetty starting in 1936 (previously destroyed by the 1925 cyclone). Asbestos mined in Wittenoon was shipped from the Point Samson jetty, and the State Shipping Service stopped at Point Samson. The last ship visited Cossack in 1938.

Image 13. Jubilee Hotel, 1920s (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.867, top, and 2005.2330).

It is from this period that social histories start to become clearer, with oral histories from people living during this period providing a more textured account of life in the past. Normana and William Leslie owned Karratha Station from 1929 until 1966. Normana arrived by ship at Cossack before travelling to

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Karratha Station in 1934. For Normana, arriving at the Station ‘was the most beautiful sight looking down on those plains and away in the distance the line of light, blue light and purple coloured hills... My first impression (of the homestead)…was how wonderful! … there was a most beautiful garden…it was like coming into an oasis.’ Despite drought at this time, we learn that the homestead gardens were maintained by watering, and this provided an important sense of refuge within the harsh environment. She also discusses the impact of cyclones, especially the 1945 blow, ‘the worst willy willy to hit the coast, we lost 15,000 sheep in one night, over fifty mills, one hundred miles of fencing, the wool shed, the shearers quarters.’93

Image 14. Karratha homestead 1931 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.720)

Image 15. Bill Leslie with mother Sarah Leslie at Karratha homestead, 1933 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.714)

Image 16. Aboriginal house staff, 1931 (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.7120

In 1940 a Royal Commission into Western Australia’s pastoral industry, led by Surveyor General WV Fyfe, was undertaken reflecting the government’s concern over a declining pastoral industry.94 With World War Two and many men joining the defence forces, the available labour was reduced for pastoralists.

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In 1942, Japan bombed Wyndham, Derby, Broome, Port Hedland and Exmouth, and the government 95 recommended that women and children be evacuated to the south. Remaining men volunteered to 96 undertake a coast watch.

By the mid 1940s many pastoral leases had been abandoned. Aboriginal labour was vital to pastoralists staying afloat in the war years, as fewer Aboriginal men enlisted for war service. Some accounts of Aboriginal life histories in the Pilbara from this time have been published, recalling station life in the 1940s from an Aboriginal perspective.

Bill Dunn’s life story reveals that by the time of World War Two he was an experienced stock manager in the Marble Bar area, and decided to make an application to the Lands Department for an area of 300,000 acres around Mt Divide near Nullagine, which he wished to develop as a pastoral station. The lease was to be granted, subject to no objections being raised and to Dunn being given an exemption certificate from the Native Administration Act. In 1944 the Western Australian Natives (Citizenship Rights) Act provided for acquisition of full citizenship rights by Aboriginal people, provided they could prove they were of good character. Aboriginal people called this a ‘dog licence’, or the ‘dog collar’ act. Dunn obtained exemption, deemed ‘an Aboriginal native of good character.’ However, neighbouring pastoralists objected to his application stating that it would be a threat to their viability.97 He continued to develop his stockman skills through station work during this time and joined the North West Volunteer Defence Force (V.D.F.), to be appointed as an officer of the Army Reserve, charged with preparing for the threat of invasion.98

During the war years some Aboriginal people had greater opportunities. Peter Coppin, born at Yarrie Station on the DeGrey River, continued to work at Warralong Station near Marble Bar during the war years. Coppin remembered;

‘We know the war is on. Some of our people was training and the same thing happened to me, but I was at Warralong and they just can’t go without me. So they tell me to stay here, I got to look after station. I was looking after the station, really. All them bloody whitefellas run away!’99

It was during this period that Coppin grew more aware of great social injustices facing Aboriginal people living in the East Pilbara and working on pastoral stations. Coppin played an instrumental role in one of the most significant post-war events in Australia. He helped to organise the 1946 Pilbara strike when Aboriginal workers walked off stations, striking for a wage of thirty shillings a week, less than the basic wage.100 The strike was the first time Aboriginal workers had organized industrial action in Australia and signaled momentous change. It is estimated that over eight hundred people were involved in the strike and twenty stations affected.101 The strike lasted until 1949. It resulted in the first Indigenous-owned company being registered in Western Australia in 1951, which went on to own several pastoral stations.102

In the post-war period Britain was active in developing and testing nuclear weapons. The seemingly remote Montebello islands, some 80 kilometres off the Pilbara coast, were selected for the site of Britain’s first nuclear tests. Robert Menzies approved a test program in October 1952, with uranium mined in South Australia. Benefits for the State of Western Australia included the introduction of direct telephone services for the North.103 Members of the British and Australian press covering the event established a ‘hill top observation post’ on Mardie Station to document the events.104 In October 1952 Operation Hurricane tested one bomb and May and June 1956 Operation Mosaic tested two bombs. Dorrie Wally, living on Mardie Station, recounted the event,

‘Testing atom bomb... I seen that. Like a mushroom, lot of flame in the bottom...Flame just went ‘boosh’... and flash! And is a mushroom on the top. The boss told us, is going off soon and we all got up in the tank. But not glasses (binoculars), we had bottles, looking through water bottles.’105

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The ramifications of these tests became clear with widespread health problems and deaths of those closely involved. A Royal Commission was called in 1985 to investigate the impact of the radioactive contamination.106

Image 17. Operation Hurricane, 3 October 1952 (Wikipedia)

During the 1950s, Pilbara stations struggled to return to the level of profitability seen in the years prior to the strike. By 1956, station owners Bill Leslie from Karratha Station, Frank Thomspon from Pardoo Station and Lang Hancock from Mulga Downs Station, sought assistance for their economic plight from the Federal government. The delegation did not have success, receiving only an increase of $120 in the taxation zone allowance.107 This was followed in the 1960s by a severe depression in the wool and beef industry, which devastated the Pilbara pastoral industry.108

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Image 18. Karratha Station wool at Maitland River landing. L-R Gwen Dyer, Clare Sholl, Win McCamey, Glen Coabin, Bill Leslie (Courtesy Shire of Roebourne Local History Office, 2005.777).

The Pilbara strike, combined with the government closing the old ration camps, resulted in many Aboriginal people moving away from stations and into towns. Gradually all ration camps were closed, except the Roebourne Reserve. This created a large displacement of people from their homelands.109 In Roebourne, the number of Aboriginal people living on the reserve across the Harding River grew to about three hundred people and became the largest reserve in Western Australia. People from many different language groups lived at the Roebourne Reserve, often alienated from their country.

Allery Sandy remembered growing up on the Old Reserve fondly,

‘(my) Earliest memories go back to the Old Reserve where all the tribes were living together. Yindjibarndi, Ngarluma people... just across the river ... it was a beautiful place where it was situated. We were all happy and running around free out on the flats, overlooking at the racecourse. And looking at those big Mac trucks, in those days use to travel on the gravel road, dust use to come, mail trucks use to travel to and fro every weekend. And we use to sit out there and see who’s coming from the station. They were happy memories for me. And going to school from there, across the river.

... the Old Reserve had tin houses and little shacks and bough sheds and it was a happy environment for us to live together in harmony. Yeah people were happy and free in those days …’110

Similarly Patricia Pat described,

‘When we were on the reserve we used to have a tent. We did have fun. Old people used to have an open campfire and we’d sit down and sing songs, many corroborees and all that. Every night. We never had TVs, just music, dancing and singing. There was stories and singing.’

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The reserve was also a place where cultural knowledge and knowledge of country could be passed on and shared. Pat remembered:

‘I knew a lady, she used to take us out in the bush and teach us to pick up food, learn tracking – goanna and all. The younger boys would go out with the grandfathers. The girls used to go out with their grandmothers and aunties.’111

Despite these happy memories of children growing up on the reserve, poor sanitation and overcrowding at the reserve caused poor health, disease and occasionally the deaths of children. Aboriginal people living in the reserve were also subject to segregation from the wider community. The reserve community had to fight for a school so that their children could be educated because they weren’t allowed to attend the town school. A separate ‘native school’ for kids from the reserve was established in the early 1950s. The move to the reserve also enabled greater control and interference with Aboriginal lives by the Department of Native Affairs and the police.

A former teacher at the Roebourne School in 1957 and 1958 remembered the complex structure of the community with Aboriginal people, landowners and government workers:

‘The white school was for white, black and brindle, every sort of child went to that school providing they lived in town. The children in my class were mainly Aboriginal children. Children who stayed on the reserve went to the ‘native’ school which was down near Patterson’s garage, probably the courthouse next door…There was sort of a class system… the squattocracy was the upper crust, then I think the next would have been private business people like Dalgety’s, and it was very upper crust and posh. And then you had the government servants like the police, the nurses and the teachers.’112

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Social change, a future in resources (1960s-1980s)

Lang Hancock, who owned Mulga Downs Station and whose family had been in the Pilbara since the time of European settlement, carried out aerial surveys and found large deposits of iron ore in 1953. Hancock lobbied the government to lift the iron ore export embargo from the mid 1950s. In 1937, Hancock had established asbestos mining at Wittenoom with Peter Wright. In 1943 this enterprise was taken over and expanded by Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR) through its subsidiary Australian Blue Asbestos Ltd, shipping out of Point Samson.

In the 1950s and 1960s concern began to grow about the devastating impact of asbestos exposure with incidences of cancer, lung diseases and premature death to those in contact with the deadly fibre. Dr Jim McNulty, employed by the Public Health Department as a mines medical officer and chest physician, began to visit Wittenoom between 1959 and 1962, diagnosing the first case of mesothelioma at Wittenoom in 1962.113 However CSR didn’t close Wittenoom asbestos mine until 1966, exposing many more people to asbestos, with devastating consequences for many individuals and the wider Pilbara community from Wittenoom through to Roebourne and Point Samson. Violet Samson described the impact of asbestos diseases in her family and the Roebourne community,

‘my mother was broken hearted with the asbestos deaths. Then she got that money for asbestos sickness and passed away. Many passed away and never got compensation. In those days the bloody company refused to accept liability. Her husband, Alec, worked with Tsakalos Transport, carrying asbestos. Even my brother, Eddie, he passed away and Jack the driver, too.’114

In 1960, as pastoral stations declined, the iron ore export embargo was lifted which opened up the Pilbara for iron ore mining prospects. The Western Australian government soon announced permits for the exploration and development of iron ore deposits. In 1962, Hamersley Iron, with Frank Anderson as managing director, began planning the design and construction of a large mine, heavy duty railway 293km long, a major port and two towns for $126 million, while negotiating government approvals and sales contracts with Japanese steel mills. Sir Charles Court, Premier of Western Australia described the work of Hamersley Iron as a ‘world scale’, ‘bold’ and ‘imaginative’ enterprise. 115 By 1965, the company Hamersley Iron established port facilities at Dampier and the Tom Price to Dampier railway was completed in 1966, with town sites being established at Tom Price and Dampier.

In 1966, Bill Leslie sold Karratha Station to Hamersley Iron, the first pastoral station to be sold to mining interests, seeing the demise of the pastoral industry in the Pilbara, and with it the end of station life for those who had been kept on with their families as Aboriginal station workers. With the Federal Pastoral Industry Award of 1968 which decreed equal pay for equal work, many pastoral stations became unviable and the last remaining Aboriginal station workers were pushed off the stations and into the Roebourne Reserve. By the late 1960s the Roebourne Reserve became desperately overcrowded.

Iron ore was not the only emerging industry in this period. Woodside was granted offshore exploration permits on the North West Shelf in 1963. The Barrow Island oil field was declared commercial in 1966 and Dampier Salt had constructed more than 85 km of causeways, seawalls, levees and a pond area of nearly 9000 acres on the Dampier Salt lease by 1969. Fisheries were developed at Point Samson, with catch of prawns, deep sea and reef fish, crayfish, crabs, pearlshell and oysters.

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The development of mining and gas industries in the Pilbara had massive consequences for the people of the Shire of Roebourne. With the establishment of Dampier in 1965, Karratha in 1968 as the major administrative centre, followed by Wickham in 1970 to support the development of the port at Cape Lambert, the major administrative centres and many services shifted away from Roebourne. The population of the Shire grew rapidly, with an influx of mining and construction workers, many of whom were recent immigrants, thanks to the Federal Government lifting the national ban on non-white immigration in 1966, as an end to the ‘White Australia Policy.’116 It was a culturally diverse community, but with many more men than women. Aboriginal people felt excluded from the company towns, and excluded from the mining workforce, unable to get work in the new industries because they were without qualifications.117

Image 19. Launch of North Rankin 'A' gas platform in June 1982 (Shire of Roebourne Local History Collection, 2005.138)

With such rapid development in the 1960s and 1970s, the unique heritage of the area began to be both placed under pressure and recognised. The National Trust of Australia (WA), which had formed in 1959, classified the Cossack Courthouse (1885) and Customs House Bond Store (1895) in 1973 and the Roebourne Courthouse (1887) in 1974. The Cossack Management Committee (later renamed the Cossack Restoration and Development Association) formed in 1976 by residents in the Shire of Roebourne concerned with the deterioration of buildings at Cossack. This group subsequently held the lease of buildings at Cossack and were responsible for the maintenance and restoration of the precinct. In 1977 the National Trust classified Cossack as an Historic Town Site, together with many classifications of individual buildings within Cossack. By 1979, restoration of some buildings commenced. While National Trust classifications didn’t offer any legal protection for the buildings, it did

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provide recognition of their heritage significance, prior to heritage legislation in Western Australia, which didn’t come until the 1990 Heritage Act.

Aboriginal heritage was little recognised and poorly understood in this climate of rapid development. The State and Federal Government continued to facilitate the economic growth prospects for the region with the North West Shelf Natural Gas Project approved in 1977. This signaled the next phase of industrial activity with the growth of infrastructure to support the North West Shelf Gas Project, creating significant impact on the heritage of the Burrup Peninsula. Although the 1972 Aboriginal Heritage Act gave the Western Australian Museum through the Department of Aboriginal Sites, responsibility to protect places and objects significant to the Aboriginal people, destruction of Aboriginal heritage sites was widespread. Individual sites within the Peninsula were registered under the Act, however companies were allowed to either move or destroy sites in the path of their expansion under section 18 of this Act. David Ritter argued in 2003 that no application under the Act had yet been refused.118 While the extent of sites destroyed prior to 1972 isn’t known, many thousands of petroglyphs and other Aborigonal heritage sites have been destroyed since then under the Aboriginal Heritage Act.

Basic human rights for Aboriginal people were finally acknowledged with the 1967 Referendum that granted automatic citizenship status to Aboriginal people. It allowed Aboriginal people to be counted in the national census and to be subject to Commonwealth laws not just state. The citizenship rights were referred to by Aboriginal people as ‘drinking rights’ because it permitted people to drink in the pub. This had devastating consequences for the community, with alcoholism causing the breakdown of families and increasing abuse and violence.

In Roebourne, racial discrimination continued unabated. In 1973, a study for the Department of Community Welfare found ‘considerable racial discrimination’ in Roebourne and conditions in the reserve ‘among the worst in the north-west.’ 119 The impact of the mining industry created further alienation from traditional lands and great disruption to traditional practices. This period saw an influx of mining workers – the only hotel in the area was the Victoria Hotel – and, fuelled by alcohol, violence was commonplace. Violet Samson remembered,

‘I was here when the mining people came here working for money and just coming to the pub. They came into Roebourne and turned the town upside down, taking the young girls. It destroyed Aboriginal families.’120

Next to the reserve, a caravan park housed the mining workers – up to five hundred men at any time – which placed great pressure on the community in the reserve. The Shire did little to alleviate such pressures and instead was concerned with reducing ‘Aboriginal troublemakers’ in the town.121 A Shire officer requested that the reserve be moved further out of town and that a ceremonial site be relocated closer to the Aboriginal cemetery.122

In the mid 1970s, the government decided to build designated housing for Aboriginal people in what became known as the village and close the reserve. This was done without consultation or listening to the views of Aboriginal people and the new housing was built next to the old Roebourne cemetery, which caused great offence to the community. In 1975, the reserve was demolished and more than 250 people from about 50 families resettled in the Roebourne village as part of a program by Federal and State Governments to rehouse Aboriginal people in more suitable accommodation. Unfortunately the lack of consultation meant that the new accommodation was highly unsuitable and caused great distress to the community. Violet Samson portrayed the depth of cultural clash in her memories of the time,

‘We hadn’t had a house before and had to learn what to do. These ‘homemakers’, all ladies, were coming, telling us. They were whitefellas through the family service. They’d come and help some of the old people how to use the things in the house, for none of them was used to furniture, you know. It wasn’t clear what to do.’123

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The Pilbara Aboriginal Church (started by Pastor Dave Stevens in 1960) grew in significance at this time for the community, facilitating greater cultural awareness, connection to country programs and support for the community in a time of great transition. The Church established a Youth Group, which thrived for several decades.

The growing community around the mining and gas industries is reflected in the variety of community services that were established in Karratha during the 1970s. A local festival, known as FeNacle (Fe for iron and NaCl for salt, the major industries of the area) was started by the community in 1972. Several churches were consecrated (St Mary Magdalene Church of England in 1977 and St Paul’s Catholic Church in 1978), a Community Centre opened in 1974, Recreational Clubhouse opened in 1975, Karratha Fire Station also in 1975 and Health Care Centre in 1977.

With such rapid development industrial disputes were common because of demands placed on workers and through unionised effort to improve work conditions. Indeed the iron ore industry has been described as ‘strike-prone’ 124 especially in the 1970s and 1980s when industrial action was ‘endemic...threatening the future of several projects, and increasing competition and regulation.’125 A 1979 strike by Hamersley Iron workers for example lasted twelve weeks.126 In 1985, iron ore industry strikes accounted for 77 percent of the number of strikes in the State.127

In 1980, a dispute over oil exploration on a sacred site on Noonkanbah Station in the Kimberley was felt in the Shire of Roebourne. The unions (including Transport Workers Union, Electrical Trades Union, Australian Workers Union and Builders Labourers Federation), which supported the Aboriginal cause, attempted to stop a convoy of 50 trucks carrying the drilling rig and non-union drillers and truck drivers, supported by police and the State Emergency Services, from travelling from Perth to Noonkanbah. The first attempted blockade was on the North West Coastal Highway 18km south of Karratha on 10 August 1980. Thirty to fifty trade union officials, shop stewards and their families, and some seamen from Wickham were present, but were outnumbered by police, and about six were arrested. Further unsuccessful attempts were made to block the convoy as it headed north (Port Hedland, Strelley, Broome).128

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Image 20. Fenacl festival, Dampier, 1972 (Shire of Roebourne Local History Collection 2005.527)

Image 21. Bus used by Hamersley Iron (Shire of Roebourne Local History Collection 2005.601)

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Contested landscapes, a nationally significant region (1990s-2000s)

With the growing population, the need for better access to water became an urgent priority. In the early 1980s, the Public Works Department proposed to build a dam on the Harding River, with little thought about the destruction of Aboriginal heritage that this would cause. There was also little concern for the social impact, especially in Roebourne, where the lifestyle focused on the river, through fishing and other activities.

Heritage site identification and cataloguing was undertaken by the Western Australian Museum, with their responsibilities under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972, but as with the Burrup Peninsula, heritage was not protected. Olive argues that these site surveys were based on the belief that Aboriginal traditional life had been disrupted to such an extent that the area was unlikely to include sites of significance.129 Yet the area of the dam was an important rain-making site, of continuing significance for Yindjibarndi people, and contained significant rock art. The approach taken by the engineers was to relocate rock art where possible, to an artificial area near the dam wall for tourist education.130 This highly inappropriate and offensive strategy was proposed with little and improper consultation. A protest of seventy Yindjibarndi people outraged at the impact on their cultural heritage was held at the dam site in 1984, but with little effect.

In 1984, with construction underway, Yindjibarndi people attempted to appeal to the new Commonwealth Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, but this was unsuccessful.131 Tootsie Daniels remembers ‘…the trouble of the Harding River Dam. I remember the old people, they were really upset about it, the Harding Dam … They didn’t want the dam to be there because there were significant sites there, their sites, our sites. They shouldn’t be covered in water at all.’132

Another negative impact on cultural heritage associated with the building of the Harding River Dam was the neglect and abandonment of Cooya Pooya Station, purchased from the Stove family in 1978 by the Water Authority as it was within the Harding River catchment area. For decades, this significant pastoral station has been allowed to become derelict, with no effort to preserve the head station complex including homestead, shearer’s quarters, shearing shed, workers quarters and animal houses.

The period from the mid 1970s to early 1980s saw much social upheaval in Roebourne, following the closure of the reserve and relocation of housing to the village. Police discrimination against the Aboriginal community at this time was rife. Noel Olive points to startling figures that one in every three Aboriginal people in Roebourne was arrested in a period of three months during 1983.133

The climate of ‘police persecution’ as described by Olive, persisted, culminating in the death of John Pat.

On 28 September 1983, John Pat tragically died in custody in police cells in the Roebourne Police Station, Gaol and Court House Precinct, aged nearly 17. This eventually triggered the national Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1989. John Pat had been arrested with others following an altercation at the Victoria Hotel which involved a group of police officers fighting with a group of Aboriginal men. John Pat was punched by a policeman and fell, hitting his head on the road. Witness accounts of the event testify to police brutality, both in their actions outside the Victoria Hotel and in their transfer of those arrested to the police lock up. John Pat was pronounced dead after prisoners were in their cells.

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Fiona Skyring’s oral history interviews with the community about the event reveal the extent of the impact on the Roebourne community. The Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) became involved, with the field officer Clarrie Cameron arriving just three hours after hearing about Pat’s death. Cameron recalled a culture of police aggression in Roebourne, against both white and Aboriginal people, with ‘these three young coppers (that) had the run of the town.’ He went on to say, ‘it built up slowly. It built up until this incident and they just thought they would get away with murder, which they did.’ 134 Skyring’s oral histories show the devastating impact of the event, with Jill Churnside commenting, ‘This town will never get away from it, those memories.’135

An inquest into John Pat’s death was held in 1983. This resulted in the Coroner finding that Pat died of a closed head injury in the juvenile cell at Roebourne police lock up. The police constables involved were committed to stand trial for the unlawful killing of Pat. Image 22. Artist unknown, Rally To However, a jury in Karratha acquitted the constables Defend Black Rights, 1984 of the manslaughter of Pat with no Aboriginal people on the jury, and two of the Aboriginal men involved in the fight were convicted and fined on charges connected with the fight. The ALS then wrote to the Attorney-General requesting that other charges be laid on the acquitted policemen in connection with the incident, but were unsuccessful. The ALS brought private charges against the constables of assault causing bodily harm on behalf of Roy Smith and Peter Coppin, who were also involved in the fight. This too failed, and as Skyring states, ‘To this day, no one has been successfully prosecuted as a result of John Pat’s death in police custody.’136

The Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia campaigned to have deaths in police custody investigated, with Western Australia having the highest ratio of Aboriginal deaths in custody in prisons from 1980-88, at 29 times the national average and 25% higher than the national rate (87 deaths per 100,000 people).137 In 1987 the national Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was established under Commissioner Justice Muirhead, beginning with a focus on deaths in custody since 1980.138 The recommendations of the Royal Commission, released in 1991, included reforms that were underpinned by the principle that imprisonment was to be a last resort and that this be supported through legislation. The aim was to reform the criminal justice system so that the numbers of Aboriginal people in custody was reduced. Sobering-up shelters for example would provide an alternative to custody for Aboriginal people drunk in public as well as changes in arrest and bail practices. The Royal Commission also made broader recommendations about the need for eliminating Indigenous disadvantage. 139

In 1992 the High Court of Australia made an historic decision with Mabo (No 2), the Court decided that the doctrine of terra nullius should not have been applied to Australia and that the common law of Australia would recognise native title. In 2000, prior to native title being determined around Roebourne, the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation Limited was created through an agreement with the North West Shelf Venture partners, which provided compensation for land use of the Burrup Peninsula. It was not until 2005 that the Ngarluma/Yindjibarndi Native Title claim was granted – the first native title determination in the Pilbara region. The recognition provided by native title was a step further toward acknowledgement of Aboriginal rights over their land and the importance of their traditional custodial

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practices. Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation (2005) and Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation (2005) were established to manage native title responsibilities, create social and economic opportunities for Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people and develop cultural programs including restoring language and connection to country.

From 2000 to 2012 economic growth driven by iron ore mining, the North West Shelf (NWS) gas project and other industries, has been of startling national significance, whereas the previous period from the 1960s-1990s provided little growth, especially in the iron ore industry. 140 From 2000, international agreements and global companies drove investment and development at a rapid pace in the Shire, now known as Australia’s economic powerhouse.

The NWS gas project is a joint venture managed by Woodside Energy with BHP Billiton Petroleum, BP, Chevron, Japan Australia LNG (MIMI) and Shell. In 2002, China and Australia signed a contract worth $25billion for supply of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from the NWS.141 In 2006, the first shipment of LNG to China was made on the carrier the Northwest Seaeagle, described as ‘an historic moment for Australian trade... the start of a 25 year trading relationship between partners in the NWS project and its newest customer Guangdong Dapeng LNG.’142 China selected the NWS venture as the preferred supplier to its first LNG project. Indian owned Burrup Fertilisers started construction of their ammonia plant on the Burrup in 2003, officially opened in 2006 by Premier Alan Carpenter at a cost of $700 million.143 In June, the first shipment of ammonia was made from Burrup Fertilisers on board the Polar Viking.144 Increased demand for steel from China saw the expansion of Hamersley Iron, acquired by Rio Tinto in 2000. Although iron ore prices have declined to half their value from thirty years ago, increased demand and productivity has resulted in expansion. 145 By 2008 the Cape Lambert port upgrade was complete, further expanding Rio Tinto’s iron ore capacity.

This intensive industrial activity has involved labour changes, with an increase in Fly-in Fly-out (FIFO) workers, a practice which was introduced post 2000 to address labour shortages and as a cost saving measure for companies. FIFO labour has had negative and positive impacts on Northwest communities, and wider communities around the State and country. The impacts of FIFO labour are under evaluation.146

In addition to impacts on cultural heritage resources, the increasing demands of industry and growing population see concerns about the environment ranging from water quality, suitable recreational space, use of fishing and hunting resources, the potential for eco-tourism, impacts on coastal environments through increased recreational activities, greater numbers of off-road vehicle traffic, as well as impacts on air and water quality by industry.

This has led to the development of interest groups, for example caring for nesting sea turtles on Rosemary Island and elsewhere. There have also been major scientific programs intended to assess the impact of industry on rock art on the Burrup Peninsula and elsewhere. Much of the focus of industry and occupation is in the coastal zone and thus deeply relevant to the Shire of Roebourne. The destruction of heritage sites continues within the framework of regional development of significance to the state and nation.

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LOCAL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE INVENTORY 2013

The LGHI is a list of sites of value to the Shire of Roebourne in an increasingly changing cultural landscape. These sites are cultural assets and the basis for future industries in tourism and education.

The Place Record List below shows items that are currently on the LGHI following the 2013 review. Volume Two provides detailed descriptions of each Place, including location, land ownership, heritage listings, physical description, history, archaeology, and significance.

All uncredited photographs in the LGHI are copyright of the Shire of Roebourne.

Place Record List

MANAGEMENT LGHI ID PLACE NAME LOCALITY CATEGORY 1. Aboriginal Cemetery (2 Mile) Roebourne A

2. Aboriginal Reserve (2 Mile) Roebourne A/B

3. Balla Balla Landing (ruins) Balla Balla C

4. Balmoral Station Homestead Group (fmr) Pastoral station B

5. Black Hawk Bay Gidley Island A

6. Chirritta Station Homestead Group Pastoral station B

7. Convent School (fmr) Roebourne C

8. Cooya Pooya Homestead Group (fmr) A Cossack Precinct. A Encompasses MHI 1996 Cossack listings, review list, 9. additional sites and SHR listings now incorporating Cossack SHR Place Cossack Town Site Precinct. Assessed for LGHI 2013. 10. Cossack Upper Landing Cossack A

11. Croyden Station Homestead Group Pastoral station C

12. Dalgety House (fmr) Roebourne A Dampier Archipelago (including Burrup Peninsula). Burrup/Murujuga and A 13. Replaces MHI 1996 listing for Burrup Peninsula and Islands includes review list item Happy Valley. 14. Depuch Island Island A

15. Dolphin Island Watering Cove Graves Island A

16. Enderby Island Grave and Sedjarta Shipwreck Island B

17. Fisher's House (fmr) Roebourne B

18. Freddie Yee Palk's Bakery and Store (fmr) Roebourne B 19. Garage Workshop (fmr) Roebourne B 20. Harding Dam/Lake Poongkaliyarra Harding Dam B 21. Hearson Cove Burrup/Murujuga B 22. Holy Trinity Anglican Church Roebourne A Hospital, Kitchen Block & Quarters and Matron’s 23. Roebourne Quarters A 24. Inthanoona Station Homestead Group (fmr) Pastoral station A

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

MANAGEMENT LGHI ID PLACE NAME LOCALITY CATEGORY 25. Jarman Island Lighthouse & Quarters Island A 26. Karratha Cemetery Karratha B 27. Karratha Station Homestead Group Pastoral station A 28. Lazarette, Cossack Cossack Unassigned

29. Mallina Station Homestead Group Pastoral station B

30. Malus Island Whaling Site Island B Mardie Station Homestead Group and Woolsheds 31. Pastoral station A (fmr) 32. Market Garden Site on Bampu Pool, Harding River Other B

33. Meares’ House (fmr) Roebourne C

34. Miller’s Well Karratha C

35. Mt Fisher Station Homestead Group (fmr) Pastoral station B Pastoral station, A 36. Mt Welcome Station Homestead Group Roebourne

37. Nickol Bay Hospital, Karratha Karratha B

38. Nickol Goldfield Other C

39. Old Cemetery Roebourne B

40. Old Sherlock Station Homestead Group (fmr) Pastoral station B A - D 41. Old Stock Route Wells Other Others – B to D

42. Old Woodbrook Station Homestead Group (fmr) Pastoral station A

43. Pegs Well, Karratha Karratha C

44. Point Samson Jetty (fmr) Point Samson C

45. Pyramid Station Homestead Group Pastoral station A

46. Roe’s House (ruin) Roebourne C

47. Roebourne Airport Roebourne C Roebourne Police Station, Gaol & Court Precinct 48. Roebourne A (fmr) 49. Roebourne Post Office Roebourne A

50. Roebourne Primary School & Quarters (fmr) Roebourne A

51. Roebourne Race Track (North West Jockey Club) Roebourne B

52. Rosemary Island Island A

53. Sam's Creek and Harbour Point Samson C

54. Sam's Island Island B

55. Sherlock Station Homestead Group Pastoral station B

56. Shire of Roebourne Office, Karratha Karratha C

57. Solveig Shipwreck Point Samson B

58. Springs Station Homestead Group (fmr) Pastoral station A

59. St Mary Magdalene Anglican Church, Karratha Karratha C

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MANAGEMENT LGHI ID PLACE NAME LOCALITY CATEGORY 60. St Paul’s Catholic Church, Karratha Karratha B

61. Stone Yards on Harding River, Mt Welcome Station Other B Tramway Site (Roebourne to Cossack and Point B 62. Various Samson Rail)

63. Union Bank (fmr) Roebourne A

64. Victoria Hotel Roebourne A

65. War Memorial Roebourne B

66. Watering Cove, Burrup Peninsula Burrup/Murujuga C

67. Watson & Tee Store (fmr) Roebourne A

68. We Care Life Centre (fmr) Roebourne C

69. Weerianna Gold Mine Other C

70. West Lewis Island Island A

71. Whim Creek and Mons Cupri Copper Mine Whim Creek B

72. Yaburara Heritage Trail Karratha B

73. Yannery Hills Grave Other C

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Review List

The 2013 review included attempting to consider the following items.

PLACE NAME

Airstrip at Croyden

Benmore Station

Bezout Island Lazarette

Camp 49

Canhams Copper Mine

Chinese Rocks

Cossack Man site at Dawson’s Creek

CWA Cottage, Point Samson

Dampier Church

DECCA site

Delambre Island

Dixon Island (Port Robinson)

Egina Goldfield

Flying Foam Massacre site, Dampier Archipelago

Glen Roebourne Copper Mine’s Stamp Batteries

Golden Valley Camp and Gold Mine

Jubilee Hotel, Roebourne

Langwell Station Homestead Group (fmr)

Leslie Hills Mine

Maitland River Landing

Masonic Lodge (fmr), Roebourne

Montebello Islands

Old Balmoral Station Homestead Group (fmr)

Old Commercial Hotel, Roebourne

Old Roebourne Well

Old Telegraph Office, Roebourne

Our Lady of the Pilbara Church, Wickham

Overland Telegraph Line

Paradise Well and Rock Banks

Pearce’s Well, Mallina Station

Picture Gardens, Roebourne

Point Samson House 73 Meares Drive

Point Samson Well

Pope's Nose shell midden

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HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

PLACE NAME

Red Dog

Rob Roy Hotel, East Harding River

Sadliers Garden, Gardeners Creek

Shakespeare Hall’s Hut

Sherlock River Landing

St Peter’s Church – Dampier

Tambrey Centre

Tommy Lee's mine (on road to Chirritta)

Toweranna Mine

Tozer Springs

Trial Shipwreck

Turtle Pens, Flying Foam Passage

Viewing site of Montebello islands nuclear tests, on Mardie Station

Warambie Station Homestead Group

Whandoo Copper Mine and Grave

White Asbestos Mines Woodbrook

Wickham Picture Garden

Willy James Grave/Old Reserve near Harding River Dam

Woodbrook Station Homestead Group

Woodbrook Station Lead Mine

Yannery Hills Mine

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Local Government Heritage Inventory Site (Site Number) HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Footnotes

1 Prepared by O’Brien Planning Consultants, Subiaco, April 1996. 2 http://stateheritage.wa.gov.au/docs/rebranded-publications/basicprinciplesforlocalgovinventories 3 http://australia.icomos.org/wp-content/uploads/Code-on-the-Ethics-of-Co-existence.pdf 4 See also Diversity, Place and the Ethics of Conservation: A Discussion Paper, ICOMOS Australia, Prepared for the Australian Heritage Commission, March 1994 5 For comprehensive information on the history of development on the Burrup and an overview of the significance of the rock art see, Patricia Vinnicombe, ‘Petroglyphs of the Dampier Archipelago: Background to Development and Description Analysis’, Rock Art Research, Vol 19, No 1, 2002, pp 3-27 6 ‘Native Title Land breakthrough on Burrup’, Prospect Western Australia’s International Resources Development Magazine, Mar-May 2003, p 3. 7 For fuller discussion of the process around listing the Burrup on the National Heritage List see, Andrea Witcomb and Kate Gregory, From the Barracks to the Burrup: The National Trust in Western Australia, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2010. 8 http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/maritime-archaeology-db/wrecks/trial accessed 11 December 2012. 9 TJ Gara, The Aborigines of the Dampier Archipelago: An Ethnohistory of the Yaburara, 199?, typescript, available Battye Library, p 2. 10 Quoted in Gara, p 2. 11 Kathy De la Rue, Pearl Shell and Pastures: the story of Cossack and Roebourne, and their place in the history of the North West, from the earliest explorations to 1910, Cossack Project Committee, 1979, p 2. 12 De la Rue, p 3-4. 13 Gara, p 2. 14 Leslie R. Marchant, France Australe: A study of French explorations and attempts to found a penal colony and strategic base in south western Australia 1503-1826, Artlook Books, Perth, 1982. 15 J.S. Battye, The History of the North West of Australia, KK Jones & Co, Perth, 1915, Facsimile Edition Hesperian Press, Carlisle, 1985, pp 75–78. 16 Quoted in Gara, p 2. 17 Quoted in Gara, p 4. 18 Quoted in Gara, p 4. 19 Alistair Paterson, ‘Towards a historical archaeology of Western Australia’s Northwest’ Australasian Historical Archaeology, 24, 2006, p 102. 20 Quoted in Paterson 2006, p 101. 21 Marytn and Audrey Webb, Edge of Empire, Artlook Books, Perth, 1983, p 12. 22 William Walker, ‘Pilbara’, in Jenny Gregory and Jan Gothard (eds), Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, UWA Press, Crawley WA, 2009, p 691. 23 D. B. Waterson, 'Gregory, Francis Thomas (Frank) (1821–1888)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gregory-francis-thomas- frank-3899/text5717 accessed 23 November 2012. 24 De la Rue, p 6. 25 Quoted in Gara, p 4. 26 Quoted in Gara, p 4. 27 H.J. Riatti, A history of the development of the Northwest of Western Australia, c1964, Battye Library typescript, p 18; Webb, p 15. 28 De la Rue, p 71. 29 Webb, p 17. 30 Webb, p 17–20. 31 De la Rue, p 12. 32 Cara Cammilleri, 'Padbury, Walter (1820–1907)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/padbury-walter-4355/text7075 accessed 23 November 2012. 33 Battye 1915, p 206. 34 H. Margaret Wilson, 'Hall, William Shakespeare (1825–1895)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hall-william-shakespeare- 3697/text5789 accessed 23 November 2012. 35 De la Rue, Pearl Shell and Pastures: the story of Cossack and Roebourne and their place in the history of the north west, from the earliest explorations to 1910, Cossack Project Committee, Roebourne WA, 1979, p 15-16. 36 Paterson 2006, p 103.

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37 Batye 1915, p 20–21. 38 Webb, p 22. 39 Webb, p 23. 40 Webb, p 23–24. 41 Gregory and Gothard (eds), p 692. 42 Roebourne first town to be gazetted in the North-West 1866, State Records Office. 43 State Records Office of Western Australia, Item 458, Cons 5000, Register for Roebourne town lots 1-298 and suburban lots 1-15. John Withnell was assigned Roebourne Suburban Lot 1 on 11 December 1866. 44 De la Rue, p 63. 45 Quoted in Gara, p 8. 46 Quoted in De la Rue, p 63. 47 De la Rue, p 73. 48 Mike McCarthy, ‘Naked diving for mother-of-pearl’, Early Days, Vol 13, Part 2, p 243-262. 49 Sholl reported, ‘The natives have been attacked with smallpox and a number have died.’ Gara, p 8. 50 Gara. Aubrey Hall, the son of WS Hall, eventually compiled a partial vocabulary of the ‘Ngalooma’ tribe, and lobbied for their involvement in the pearling industry as pearlers themselves, rather than slave labour. 51 Kay Forrest, The Challenge and the Chance: the colonisation and settlement of North West Australia 1861- 1914, Hesperian Press, Victoria Park WA, 1996, p 34. 52 Quoted in Noel Olive, Enough is Enough: A history of the Pilbara Mob, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, 2007, p 53. 53 Gara. 54 The number of people killed in the massacre is not known but reports suggest it may have been up to 60 people. See Gara, p 13. See also Forrest, p 58–63. 55 W. Taylor, settler near Roebourne, wrote to the Colonial Secretary to complain of the harsh treatment of Aboriginal people by police in 1869. Quoted in Gara, p 13. 56 Gara’s research notes the account of the Roebourne settler W Taylor who wrote to the Colonial Secretary to complain about the harsh treatment of Aborigines by police in the North West. Taylor’s letter written in January 1869 reflects on the massacre a year before. Gara, p 8. 57 Gara. It was suggested by Dorrie Wally, Mardudunera elder, in an oral history interview that survivors of the massacre had come to Mardie and Balmoral Station, where she grew up. Oral History Interview with Dorrie Wally interviewed by Kate Gregory 4 February 2010; archived at AIATSIS. 58 Quoted in De la Rue, p 73. 59 Olive, p 72–74. 60 Riatti, p 37 61 John Slade Durlacher, Landlords of the Iron Shore, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, W.A., (1900) 2013, p 4. 62 Ellen Richardson’s Journal 1873-1876, transcript in the State Library of Western Australia, MN 810. 63 Shire of Roebourne Municipal Heritage Inventory, O’Brien Planning Consultants, 1996, p 3-4. 64 Ellen Richardson’s Journal. 65 De la Rue, p 73. 66 De la Rue, p 68. 67 Riatti, p 36. 68 De la Rue, p 68; Olive, p 48. 69 Thomas Anketell Report to the Inspector and General Manager, dated Roebourne, West Australia, 10 October 1882, ANZ Group Archives. 70 Paterson 2006, p 107. 71 Gregory and Gothard (eds), p 692. 72 Su-Jane Hunt, ‘The Gribble Affair’, Honours thesis in history, Murdoch University, Perth, 1978, pp 98–99. 73 Paterson 2006, p 103. 74 Cossack Townsite Precinct, Register of Heritage Places Assessment Documentation, Heritage Council of Western Australia, 2006, p 9 75 Anketell report. 76 Fiona Skyring, Justice: A history of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia, UWA Publishing, Crawley, 2011, p 258. 77 Neville Green and Susan Moon, Far From Home: Aboriginal prisoners of Rottnest Island 1838-1931, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1997 78 Quoted in Olive, p 20. 79 Olive, p 20. 80 Anna Haebich, For their own good: Aborigines and Government in the South West of Western Australia 1900– 1940, UWA Press, Nedlands WA, 1992, p 54. 81 Riatti, p 41. 82 FK Crowley, Australia’s Western Third: A History of Western Australia, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1960, p 106. 83 RD Sturkey, The Growth of the Pastoral Industry in the Nor-West 1862–1901, BA (Hons) Thesis, University of Western Australia, 1957. SHIRE OF ROEBOURNE LOCAL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE INVENTORY 46

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84 Crowley, p 85; Ken Spillman, ‘Gold’, Gregory and Gothard (eds), Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, UWA Press, Crawley WA, 2009, p 415. 85 Riatti, p 39. Quoted from CH Counsel, ‘Pioneering the Gold Trail in the Kimberley and North West’, Journal and Proceedings, WA Historical Society, vol 1 pt 7, 1930, p 37. 86 Crowley, p 86. 87 Quoted in John McIlwraith, ‘Iron Ore’, Gregory and Gothard (eds) Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, UWA Press, Crawley WA, 2009, p 490. 88 FFB Wittenoom, Manager and General Superintendent for WA, 21 December 1900, Dalgety Archives, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, N8/95. 89 Dalgety Archives, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, N8/95. 90 ‘WA Wool Dalgety & Co Review’, West Australian (Perth, WA: 1879–1954), Monday 4 February 1929, p 11. 91 Kate Gregory Email Correspondence with Archivist, ANZ Archives, 4 November 2010 92 J. Hardie, Nor-Westers of the Pilbara Breed, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, 1988, p 230-231 93 Oral History Normana Leslie OH2579, 1990, Battye Library 94 Western Australian Royal Commission. 95 Michael Sturma, ‘Second World War’, Gregory and Gothard (eds) Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, UWA Press, Crawley WA, 2009, p 801 96 Gregory and Gothard (eds), p 802 97 Graham J. Wilson, Pilbara Bushman: The Life Experience of W. Dunn, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, 2002, p 29. 98 Wilson, p 33 99 Jolly Read and Peter Coppin, Kangkushot: The Life of Nyamal Lawman Peter Coppin, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1999, p 45 100 Olive, p 140. See DW McLeod, How the West was lost: the native question in the development of Western Australia, self published, Port Hedland, W.A., 1984, available in Battye Library, State Library of Western Australia; Louis Warren, ‘Pilbara Strike’, Gregory and Gothard (eds) Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, UWA Press, Crawley WA, 2009, pp 693-695 101 Olive, p 141 102 http://moadoph.gov.au/exhibitions/online/marnti-warajanga/the_1946_strike.html accessed 4 December 2012. 103 Ray Acaster, ‘Nuclear testing’, Gregory and Gothard (eds) Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, UWA Press, Crawley WA, 2009, p 640 104 Personal correspondence with Ben and Eleanor Sharpe, former owners of Mardie and Balmoral Station. Papers and photographs given to the Sharpes by the West Australian Newspapers to thank the Sharpe’s for their help the ‘Press Expedition’ to document ‘Britain’s First Atomic Explosion’. 105 Oral History with Dorrie Wally, Interviewed by Kate Gregory, 4 Feb 2010. 106 Accessed 5/12/2012 http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411273.htm For more information see PN Grabosky, ‘A toxic legacy: British nuclear weapons testing in Australia’, Wayward governance: illegality and its control in the public sector, Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra, 1989, available online http://aic.gov.au/publications/previous%20series/lcj/1-20/wayward/ch16.html 107 Hardie, p 232 108 Hardie, p 232 109 See Exile and the Kingdom 1993, Produced and Directed by Frank Rijavec. 110 Oral History Interview with Allery Sandy interviewed by Kate Gregory 2 February 2010; archived at AIATSIS. 111 Quoted in Olive, p 201-202 112 Sister Francis Sibisi, quoted in Olive, p 192 113 Accessed 6/12/12 http://www.publicsector.wa.gov.au/about-us/what-public-sector/reflections-public-sector/dr- james-mcnulty-ao-honmdecu-mb-bch-baobelf-dihlon-dphsyd-fracma-fafom See also http://www.asbestosdiseases.org.au/the-wittenoom-tragedy.html 114 Olive, p 205 115 D.F. Fairweather, ‘Anderson, Frank Struan (1909-1976)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/anderson-frank-struan-9354/text16425, accessed 12 December 2012. 116 Olive, p 166 117 Exile and the Kingdom 1993. 118 David Ritter, ‘Trashing Heritage: Dilemmas of rights and power in the operation of Western Australia’s Aboriginal Heritage Legislation’, Studies in Western Australian History, 2003, 23: 195-208. 119 Olive, p 190; refer to R. Howitt, ‘Resource Development and Aborigines The Case for Roebourne 1960-68’, Australian Geographical Studies, October 1989, p 155 120 Olive, p 188 121 Olive, p 194, referring to Shire of Roebourne records and minutes from 1970. 122 Olive, p 194 123 Quoted in Olive, p 206 124 David Plowman, ‘Industrial Relations’, Gregory and Gothard (eds) Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia, UWA Press, Crawley WA, 2009, p 476. SHIRE OF ROEBOURNE LOCAL GOVERNMENT HERITAGE INVENTORY 47

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125 McIllwraith in Gregory and Gothard (eds), p 491. 126 Shire of Roebourne Chronology 2008, Local History Collection 127 Plowman in Gregory and Gothard (eds), p 476. 128 Alexis Vassiley, “There’s no flies at Noonkanbah but the scabs are on the way”: trade union support for Aboriginal rights during the Noonkanbah dispute (1979–80), History Hons dissertation, UWA, 2012, pp 27-29 129 Olive, p 184 130 Olive, p 186 131 Olive, p 187 132 Tootsie Daniels quoted in Olive, pp 184-187 133 Olive, p 213 134 Quoted in Skyring, p 264 135 Quoted in Skyring, p 264; For a full discussion of the John Pat incident, see Skyring pp 261-272 136 Skyring, p 267 137 Skyring, p 271 138 Skyring, p 280 139 Skyring, p 291 140 ‘Iron Ore: past, present and future’, Prospect Western Australia’s International Resources Development Magazine, Jun-Aug 2012, p 8. 141 ‘China LNG contract officially signed’, Prospect Western Australia’s International Resources Development Magazine, Dec 2002-Feb 2003, p 3. 142 ‘Australia’s first LNG supplies land safely in China’, Prospect Western Australia’s International Resources Development Magazine, Jun-Aug 2006, p 3. 143 ‘Massive Indian Investment in Australia’, Prospect Western Australia’s International Resources Development Magazine, Jun-Aug 2006, p 11. 144 Local History Collection Shire of Roebourne, Email to Shire of Roebourne, 12/6/06 145 McIllwraith in Gregory and Gothard (eds), p 491. 146 A Matter of Choice: Capturing the FIFO Opportunity in Pilbara Communities, Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA Inc, April 2012 http://www.cmewa.com/UserDir/CMEPublications/A%20Matter%20of%20Choice377.pdf accessed 12 December 2012.

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